He began his career at the Collegio Romano observatory in Rome, Italy as an assistant astronomer. In 1921 he succeeded his father as the director of the Arcetri astrophysical observatory, and continued until 1957. Starting at the same time he was also a professor at the University of Florence, and continued in this capacity until 1957.
Giorgio Abetti is noted for having led expeditions to observe solar eclipses to Siberia (1936) and Sudan (1952). He was also a visiting professor at the University of Cairo in 1948–49. He was the vice president of the International Astronomical Union in 1938, and received the Medaglia d'argento from the Italian Geographic Society (1915), the Premio reale from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (1925), and the Janssen medal (1937).
The Abetti crater on the Moon and asteroid2646 Abetti are named to honor both him and his father.
Bibliography
He is the author of several popular works on Astronomy.
See the (English-language) biographical entry by GiorgioAbetti in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Gillispie, Volume 1, Page 17; and the "Historical Note" by Reginald Marriott in Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Volume 101, Number 3, June, 1991, Page 195.
The author has published numerous quality papers on the identification of Egyptian constellations.]
See also the "Preface to this Edition" by Giorgio de Santillana in the 1964 reprint, pages vii-ix.